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Thursday, May 31, 2012 | 10:50 p.m.
North Las Vegas budget dilemma
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KSNV reports that North Las Vegas unions may be forced to agree to budget concessions to close its large budget deficit pending a city council meeting Friday, May 31, 2012.
Tim Hacker
North Las Vegas City Manager Tim Hacker has a solution to balance the city’s budget for next year, and it doesn’t involve making friends with union leaders.
It will include layoffs and salary freezes, which police and firefighters union leaders promise to combat via lawsuit. Hacker claims the plan will close the $33 million budget gap the city faces for next fiscal year. He insists it will keep layoffs to a minimum without adversely affecting the city’s emergency services to residents, while cutting only excess fat.
Come Friday’s 5 p.m. city council meeting, Hacker and city officials plan to ask the council for special authority to force the unions to agree to concessions.
“I don’t have any animosity ... for these people, I just don’t. I don’t know them well enough to like or dislike them,” Hacker said of the unions. “I’m just going to do what’s in the best interest of the community. That’s what they pay me to do.”
The special authority city officials are seeking will end the negotiation stalemate of six months between the city and unions. Proposed budget moves include potentially closing the detention center, laying off a third of the firefighters and limiting the hours of the library and recreation center.
“We are preparing on Friday to go forward with this completely insane plan, which I’m not sure any attorneys out there beside (the city’s) own believe it can work,” said Mike Yarter, president of the Police Officers Association. “It violates our contract.”
As a result, union leaders are preparing to fight the city’s plan in court. Both Yarter and Jeff Hurley, who is the president of the North Las Vegas Firefighters Association, said there would be a lawsuit waiting for the city on Monday morning.
“I expect them to pass it Friday,” Hurley said. “Unfortunately when they go forward and pass it on Friday, the only move for us is it’s an attack on the labor movement, and we will defend.”
Hacker said the city would be prepared if a lawsuit is filed against it, but he worried if the unions succeed in court, it would mean the loss of more jobs.
Still, Hacker is confident the city’s plan of forced concessions is the best way for the city to untangle the knotted ball of chords that is its budget. He expects it will take a few years, but with the city’s excess of land available for development that could create more jobs, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.
For now, however, Hacker needs the unions to swallow another year of concessions, even if it won’t earn him any friends.
“If we can just get through these next few years,” Hacker said. “And we (need) to dampen down the vitriolic nature of this relationship … because we have to create a climate here that will be conducive for new development and industry.”
Its really amazing that in a real world corporation with a budget in excess of $400,000.00 that the persons in charge of such budget would have education and experience to exibit good judgement with this type of fiscal responsibility, but in the world of small town politics all that is needed to run such an operation is the ability to obtain votes on Election Day.
What corporations would have for example a dentist as a corporate officer, and he is probably the most educated of the Mayor and Council.
North Las Vegas is about to make a topic for future political science courses all over the globe due to the total ineptness of the Mayor and Council.
It all comes down to one word...MISMANAGEMENT
I'm not sure what the unions think the city is hiding other then their history of poor decision making -- seems to me the books are pretty open, and a >40% decline in general revenue since 2008 a clear indication that spending needs to be reined in -- so it's probably going to be necessary to bring city employee pay & benefits more in line with the averages for the community they serve. Given our high rate of unemployment & underemployment, I doubt it'll be that hard to find suitable replacements for those who choose to seek greener pastures elsewhere.
But I also think it may be time to take a harder look at those we elect to office. Seems to me the Mayor & Council, from at least 2004 on, did not exercise any kind of competent oversight. Anyone can lead when times are easy, the true test is can they step up and lead now.
Hacker is a moron and should be fired today. The city should have filed a balanced draft budget in March, and a balanced final budget in early May. Instead, on the final day when the budget is due to the State he is preparing to declare a state of emergency. How about firing Hacker for delinquency of duty???